Seketa earns multiple golds at Empire Games

West Genesee boys swimmer Ben Seketa emerged as one of the biggest stars as the Empire State Games returned last weekend in Buffalo.

Seketa, on his own, earned two gold medals and a silver at Erie Community College's Burt Flickinger Center. He won the 100-meter breaststroke in 1:08.77 Thursday, added a victory in the 200 breaststroke (2:30.73) a day later and took second in the 400 freestyle.

As if that were not enough, Seketa also led Central to gold medals in the 4x100 medley relay and 4x100 freestyle relay, the latter in an ESG-record time of 3:41.81 to close out the meet Saturday.

Seketa's WG teammate, Carson Elias, also was on that record-setting relay squad and earned bronze medals in the 100 butterfly and 100 freestyle. On the women's side, Kim Pedrotti claimed a bronze in the 800 freestyle and fourth in the 1,500 freestyle.

In the diving portion at University at Buffalo's Alumni Arena, Westhill/Corcoran standout Imani Williams earned a silver medal in the scholastic women's one-meter springboard and a bronze in the three-meter. Meghan Shea (Camillus) did the same in the open division, with a silver in the three-meter and bronze in the one-meter.

This was just a small part of what local athletes did for Central region teams throughout the Western New York area. Here's some more results

Lacrosse - Dylan Donahue, John Sabert (both from West Genesee) and defender Joe Snyder (Westhill) all helped Central go a perfect 5-0 in round-robin play, the highlight a thrilling 8-7 overtime win over perennial champion Long Island in front of a huge crowd at Canisius College. But in the final on Sunday, Long Island got revenge, holding on for a 7-6 victory and, once again, leaving Central with the silver medal.

Despite solid performances by Nora Barry (Marcellus) and the Jordan-Elbridge quartet of Carrie-Jo Farrugia, Ella Thorpe, Kelsey Richardson and Amanda Wheeler, Central could not translate a 3-2 round-robin mark into a medal, losing the third-place game Sunday to Adirondack 11-6 at Niagara University.